Chilean-born Alex Pertout, Australia’s most prominent Latin Jazz percussionist, leads Havana Heat along with the acclaimed and awarded Cuban producer and musicologist, Cary Diez. They have teamed with Kape Communications to create a unique cultural and arts tour tailored to creatives, musicians, producers and cultural workers. This immersive cultural and arts tour of Havana is the first of its kind offered to Australian creative professionals. It is aimed at building a deeper understanding of the diverse artistic, musical and cultural palette of Havana.

Havana is a cultural feast, an extended and ever changing rhythm, and an endless rumba dance and a new rap. Cuba is revolution and seduction and hundreds of years of cultural melding from Spain, Africa, Caribbean and North America.

Alex is the Senior Lecturer in the Jazz & Improvisation Department at the Faculty of Arts and Music, University of Melbourne, and a founding member of the Australian Art Orchestra lead by Paul Grabowsky. He has worked with some of the world’s leading Latin, Jazz and World Music artists. His album Tales To Tell was awarded the Premio Internacional at the 2015 Cubadisco Music Awards in Havana, Cuba, globally one of the most prestigious Latin Music awards.

Cary Diez is a master of musical and cultural knowledge. As a musical producer specialising in rumba, she won a Latin Grammy in 2001 along with musician Joaquín Betancourt, for the album La rumba soy yo. She is one of the main authors of the research that secured Rumba a recognition as Intangible Cultural Heritage by UNESCO. Diez and Pertout will open the barrios, venues, museums, and conversations with some of Havana’s most important artists.

Kape Communications has run years of successful arts and cultural management tours of New York, USA, and is developing similar programs for Athens, Greece and now Havana, Cuba.

Havana Heat is immersive and provides access to some of Havana’s leading music, dance, and visual artists, specialists, and major institutions. The tour includes discussions, exhibitions and presentations
of Havana’s unique cultural and arts life.

We begin with dinner at the famed Paladar home-style restaurants Los Amigos in Vedado and include a discussion on Paladares, new home-style restaurants rising in Havana.

Participants will explore the percussion style and multi-instrumental mastery of tradition bearer, Afro-Cuban drummer, Justo Pelladito; visit the Museo de la Revolución – Museum of the Revolution where we trace the history and revolutionary changes impacting on Cuba and Bellas Artes located in the palace overlooking Parque Central and the Casa Yoruba Museum managed by the Asociación Cultural Yoruba de Cuba, the first of its kind dedicated to santería and represents the diverse Afro-Cuban orishas (saint-gods). Participants also meet artists, leaders and view presentations from Conjunto Folklorico Nacional de Cuba an institution that since 1962 has been responsible for the conservation and dissemination of Cuba’s traditional Afro-Caribbean legacy.

Havana Heat includes a day trip to Regla for the Museum of Regla to witness the sacred musical traditional performance by Conjunto de Güiros San Cristóbal de Regla; this meld of rumba and Afro-Cuban religious music at the heart of Havana’s culture. Havana Heat includes performances at the authentic and famous Egrem Tienda de Música and Casa Africa where we see the performance by legendary female ensemble Obini Bata.

Havana Heat includes discussions and presentations by a range of musicians, dancers, artists, historians, musicologists, producers and composers.

After every day’s presentations and discussions we gather for rum cocktails in the gardens of the famous Hotel Nacional. We end Havana Heat with rumba and drinks at the Square of the Conjunto Folklorico Nacional de Cuba and the bata drums take over.

Tour numbers for the Havana Heat Cultural Tour are limited. Participants will be considered after application.

For information on the tour please contact Fotis on fotis[at]kape.com.au, or +61 3 9486 2770.